Tips about cleaning and washing

Reading one of the topics here I run onto a very useful tip from Akwador . concerning removing blood stains. "Use contact lense saline solution - the saline destroys the blood cells and breaks them up making their removal easier"

So I thought it would be good to have a special topic here with such tips. Let´s post our secret solutions!

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When guests return from the beach covered in sun protection and lie on the bed before showering, (at least that is how I would like to think the oily stains got there!) you wind up with oily stains that don't generally wash out. We threw away several sheets before getting this tip from one of our cleaner staff.

Soak the oily stain liberally with washing up detergent and leave overnight. Then wash as normal. Don't wash immediately as the detergent needs time to break the oil down - you will just get a washing machine full of foam! :-)

We had some guests that took a hot pizza box into their room rather than use the designated communal kitchen area. They placed the box on a wooden table and left the hotel in the morning. When we discarded the box, the heat from the pizza had discoloured the wood varnish and we had to have it repaired.

You can't stop guests doing things like this so we have covered all bed side tables, dressing tables etc with sheet glass (which is also useful to place notices underneath) and we have not had a problem since. Judging by the number of pizza boxes we remove from rooms - this would have been an ongoing problem.

It is easy to clean and stops scratches of furniture keeping it looking brand new.

A particular use for it I like is, in a tropical climate, metals even, including stainless steel, develop surface rust very quickly (unless protected by good quality, anti-rust paint).

Rub the metal work down with your usual cleaner for that job and make sure all residue of the rust and cleaner are removed and the surfaces dry. Then lightly spray with WD40 and rub over evenly with a rag. Those surfaces will not re-rust for much longer, even resists a wipe over to remove new smears and smudges. e.g. elevators, table legs, banisters.....

I somehow don't like the idea of covering surfaces with glass. But for example desks (made of pine) are starting to show some indentations as people drag laptops on them or other heavy things.

As regards washing sheets and towels - I first started out with a particular colour scheme but you cannot use hot water and the (almost) solve all - bleach - with coloured fabrics so I am slowly converting to a white everything scheme.

I did on a couple of occasions find small bloodstains on sheets - I think they were caused by slapping a mosquito as they were really small. The solution for stains caused by blood is not bleach as it will make it worse. You have to soak in a biological detergent at a low temperature - lower than 40 degrees C, then proceed with the wash as normal.

For those who do their own laundry here's a great 'drying' tip. My B&B is in Scotland and I've spent the last three summers running out to bring in my washing when it rained but this year we had an amazing summer and I spent it running out to bring my towels in before they dried completely and became hard. Up until receiving this tip I finished off my towels in the tumble drier to make them soft.

But a guest from Australia has changed all this - take your towels out of the washing machine and put them straight into the tumble drier for 3 minutes only, then hang out as normal. It works! Makes sense I guess, after a towel has had a high speed spin all the fibres are flat but just those few minutes loosens them and they dry soft!

Akwador - the pizza box furniture stain can be solved by blow drying the lacquer until it starts to clear up, same thing for water marks on the same surface.

Regarding other things, is there anyone who uses a steam cleaner to clean the bathrooms? How is that working out for you? I'm really curious to see if it's worth a 2.000 Euro investment.

Regarding heavy stains, we use a professional washing machine, it has a special cotton program on it, which runs for 5 hours and removes 95% of stains (even if someone slaughtered a pig in bed, as some people like shagging on periods). Just make sure you use professional washing powder which whitens and a bleach, also professional one.

We found that products which are from the industrial category work wonders, therefore we only use professional cleaning supplies and we work so much less since then.

Joey - have you tried to treat the skid marks on the furniture with a steam iron? Steam it heavily and it should smooth them out. We used to have this issue with an old furniture at our old house and that's how we solved it.

It is so nice to see how many hosts try to find solutions for he tiniest details. And I guess none of us commenting here have 500 room 5 star hotels. I read about how to remove tiny scratches from furniture to how to remove blood stains, to how to get a sparkling clean bathroom and to how to get fluffy towels. This makes me realise that some of us, like me, really care about the comfort of guests ad that is why it hurts when the occasional guest lies abominably about your property and why the guest reviews method needs improvement on booking.com.

My secret solution to almost anything is white vinegar. I always offer red wine to my guests but at the end of the day end up with red wine stains in table cloths. Just a little vinegar on the stain it gets pink and when washed it disappears .

Two points to add on this thread - glass on top of furniture is a good idea, but it has to be "hand finished" safety glass or else you will just end up with claims for cuts from broken glass.

You also have to keep a close eye on furniture covered with glass - guests have many mysterious methods of getting water below the glass and then leaving it there - which ruins the furniture. You also have to have pads under the glass raising it from the furniture or heat transfer from cups etc will cause the dreaded white rings on the furniture - guests seem to feel the glass removes this effect...

On the subject of blood/wine etc - my standard advice is to use the liquid carpet cleaner usually used in carpet cleaning machines. Available in 5 litre containers - add some to a bucket of warm water and leave sheets/towels etc in the water overnight then wash normally - removes most marks.

Then transfer some of the 5 litre into a spray bottle of some sort - marks on carpets/doors etc sprayed with this and then washed off normally come off very easily...

WD 40 is great stuff ! had guests complaining about a noisy flushing toilet and no matter what we did ,with adjustments and water pressure, it kept making a fearful noise when almost full ! As last resort, out came the WD40 which was squirted everywhere !..... after a few hours ....wonderful ! only a gentle hiss when chamber was full. Problem solved.

Sakats, it's too much expense, worries and time, and many of the guests do not even notice it (well, they sometimes can notice it at 5 star hotel, as I understand you are a small business). The best thing to do is to buy good quality sheets, those, that doesn't get wrinkles so easily and can stand many washes.

Thank you so much for the advice. I have found some steam presses of 80 and 100 cms that are almost like the proffesional length and quite cheap (about 300 euros) -all chinese manufacture ofcourse but what isn't these days. With the cost of the professional laundry here this is the cost of about 3 weeks I spend on them!

It never occured to me not to have ironed sheets. Do the wrinkle free sheets look almost like ironed sheets? Most of my guests are upper middle class western europeans and my prices aren't very low so I worry if there will be problems if I left them unironed.

Did anyone try "Best Egyptian: Hotel Style 500 Thread Count Wrinkle Free Egyptian Sheet Set"? Or similar to that? I personally do not like fiber, it looks and feels cheap. I prefer cotton. However, there are many innovations now.

The electricity is super expensive here (can be 10 times higher than some countries) and besides who want to iron in hot tropical climate? Most probably even hotels do not iron. From my personal experience, those hotels sheets are a mixture if cotton and synthetics (just feeling), that hard to wrinkle and besides they are thin and fluffy. There should be some secret that we need to discover.

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